An entrepreneur who brought about a revolution in the car company decides that he must now change what the world thinks, so he buys a media ownership to use as a megaphone. His tirades validate the worst impulses of many people and also encourage enemies of democracy around the world.
This sounds like Elon Musk and his social media site X in 2025, but it was also Henry Ford and his paper, the Dearborn Independent, in the 1920s. Ford, the inventor of the model T, bought an suburbs every week and made it again to push his anti -Semitic views. The Dearborn Independent published a long-term series called 'The International Jewn', which blamed Jews of the ailments of the world, and published a Hoax document. The Nazis gave Ford a medal.
Ford was perhaps the most blatant example in a long tradition of Moguls who bought media platforms and then used to promote horrible views. These Tycoons often used the latest technology to reach the widest target group, whether it was fast newspaper presses or, in the case of Ford, his network of car dealers.
Drive away in your new model T and there would be the Dearborn -independent in the chair. Newspapers were local companies at the time. With the dealers, the Dearborn Independent became one of the highest circulated newspapers in the country, so that more than 750,000 copies of each song were printed at its peak.
The biggest difference between Ford and other mediaitans such as Rupert Murdoch was that the latter generally promoted their views by hiring like -minded editors and anchors. The Dearborn Independent announced on his coverage that it was the “Ford International Weekly” and it included an editorial signed by Ford.
Mr. Musk's actions indicate a return to Ford's personal approach. The Tesla and SpaceX billionaire has enthusiastically posted, posted and approved incorrect or inflammatory claims on X that is fraudulent to social security, that the Democrats import immigrants to win elections and that the federal judges must be deposed against the Trump government.
There are many precedents for some Mr. Musk does with x. But he brought the process to a level that is even unimaginable a short time ago. The site says that he has 220 million followers, a statement that is impossible to verify. Even if it is just a fraction of that number, X is optimized to shoot the messages from the owner as broadly as possible. People see them and hear about it.
The purchase of $ 44 billion from Mr. Musk from what was then Twitter in 2022, initially seemed to be a mistake, even for him. Then it was seen as a toy of a billionaire. It became a weapon in last year's elections. He used his political views to form an alliance with Donald J. Trump, whom he then used to place himself in the government explicitly to close as much as possible.
The consequences can still be folded. But for Mr. Musk was a clear victory. In the name of the efficiency of the government, agencies have removed regulators who were able to supervise his empire. Mr. Musk now has a much freer hand with his cars and rockets. (An X spokesperson did not comment.)
“This is like nothing we've ever seen,” said Rick Perlstein, author of a four volume of chronicle of modern American conservatism. The historian noted the frequent use of memes and images of Musk: “It is the politics of the nervous system, not the higher functions of the brain. There is no argument, just afraid of lagging.”
Moguls in the United States and Great Britain have media possession with the aim of exerting influence since the founding of the modern newspaper in the late 19th century. During the First World War, Burggraaf Northcliffe of Great Britain controlled about 40 percent of the morning circulation and 45 percent of the evening circulation there. His qualities include the Daily Mail, read by the working class and the Times, read by the elites.
De Burggraaf, whose name was Alfred Harmworth, played a crucial role in depositing Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in December 1916. Winston Churchill wrote that the press baron “wanted to exert an impressive influence on events.” Viscount Northcliffe's influence on the war was so great that the Germans sent warships to kill him in 1917 and shed his house by the sea.
In the United States, the control of the media was often more of a local phenomenon. In West -Texas in the early sixties, the Ultraconservative Whoutenburg family was the Amarillo Daily News, the NBC Television Station and the dominant radio station. There were few competing voices.
“If you feed people an extreme right to media, you get a population almost exclusively on the right,” says Jeff Roche, a historian who wrote 'The Conservative Frontier', an upcoming study of the region's politics. “Amarillo became the right -wing city in America.”
“Media ownership and political influence have gone hand in hand since the earliest days of the newspaper industry,” said Simon Potter, a professor in modern history at the University of Bristol who is studying mass media. “Turns worries about this intimate relationship between the media and politics for so long – does it really serve the public interest?”
Behind that question is another: does their megaphone really strengthen them, or shouts in a void? An American precursor of Mr. Musk – William Randolph Hearst – gives an answer. Hearst, the owner of the Upstart New York Journal, sent correspondents to Cuba in 1897 to cover a war with Spain. His interests were less humanitarian than promotion. He was in a circulation war.
One version of how that story was played, Hearst showed as an almighty MediaMagnaat:
The magazine correspondents discovered that there was no war. “Everything is quiet,” Frederic Remington, the illustrator of the newspaper, Cabed Hearst. “There will be no war.” They wanted to leave.
Hearst replied: “Please. You will provide the photos and I will deliver the war.” He then agitated in his papers before the war that President William McKinley started in a short order. It freed Cuba and acquired for the valued parts of the Spanish Empire of the United States.
The story was first published in a book by a colleague from Hearst's named James Creelman and later immortal in Orson Welles's 'Citizen Kane'. It has been thoroughly invalidated over the years. There was no evidence that Hearst once said he would give a war. The correspondents found enough to illustrate. But the anecdote continued to exist because it showed a mogul so powerful that he could make wars out of nothing.
When Hearst tried to continue his wartime to promote his own political career, he stumbled. He assured a chair in the House of Representatives in 1902, but offers to become the mayor of New York, faltered twice. He also lost a 1906 campaign for the Governor of New York.
David Nasaw, who wrote 'The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst', thinks Mr. Musk's use of X to collect supporters is just as illusory as Hearst's assumed creation of a war.
“I have not seen anywhere that Twitter comes from the Maga mood,” he said.
Hearst, according to the Mr. Nasaw, reflected the feelings of his readers instead of leading them. But the historian agreed that something new was going on with Mr. Musk. Hearst, Ford, even Viscount Northcliffe and the other British press lords before the Second World War all had something in common that eventually limited them.
“They were screaming outside the room,” said Mr. Nasaw. “Twitter was important for Musk, but only to get him in the Chamber, in the government. He is unique in both inside and outside being without limitations on his behavior. There has never been anything like that.”
The sale of Tesla is falling. Hearst and Ford had Mr. Musk can warn: controversy with hateful views are bad for your reputation and usually also bad for your company.
Ford was charged with defamation over the Dearborn Independent and became the subject of Boycots. He closed the newspaper in 1927, although he did not convert. A spot lingered.
Hearst went against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and put his anti-Roosevelt cover floors on the front page of his papers. As the main articles became increasingly offensive, readers had to choose: who are we going to support, the president or the publisher?
“They chose Roosevelt,” said Mr. Nasaw. “That meant that Hearst eventually destroyed himself and his newspapers.”
